⚙Greg Scace; 💧Brewmethods.com; 🗺Hoffmann's Map

Views and news about the brews. Unique and relevant information for coffee professionals and enthusiasts.

Pump Pressure ≠ Brewing Pressure

⚙Greg Scace (inventor of the Scace device) recently held a talk in Sydney and Melbourne. He covered Espresso tip-to-toe from the eyes of an engineer. As you may have gathered, I love objectivity, and this was a well needed injection of the stuff.

The thing that has had me thinking most:

Pressure at the top of the basket is similar to pump pressure (usually 9 bar)Pressure at the very bottom of the basket is the same as atmosphere (~1 bar)

The higher your pump pressure, the bigger the difference. I love even extractions. So why not lower pressures? I’ve had great results down to 4 bar and below.

Give it a try. Maybe you already have? Talk to me about it on the Barista Hustle Facebook page here.

BrewMethods.com

💧 1 in 5 of you email me with a question or hello when you sign up (which is amazing!) and the most common questions revolve around brewing methods.

I’m still working on something to beat my V60 instructional video from 2012, so in the meantime you should be heading to BrewMethods.com for all your brewing recipe and technique needs!!! There’s heaps, and it was just updated.

PS you can reply to this email any time with questions and hellos - I read them all, I just can’t answer all of them; sorry!

James Hoffmann's Subway Map of Coffee Varieties

🗺 James announced the release of a beautiful map tracing the interactions and lineage of coffee varieties as an addendum to his awesome book, The World Atlas of Coffee. He needs expressions of interest for the first run! Orders of 10x only, so team up with your friends or stock up early on christmas presents.

Los Angeles Coffee Scene

🌞I haven’t been touring around LA to see all the coffee shops this week, but I have visited a couple. The most important thing I’ve seen is this:

Every bar has an excellent menu of drinks that are not coffee.

Infusions, shrubs, spritzers, mocktails, you name it. They’re delicious, command a higher per-unit price, engage the baristas in their development, and look amazing.

I get it if you’re one of those “we only serve coffee” businesses, but what about your coffee-drinking customer’s non-coffee-drinking friends? Or when I’ve been cupping all morning and can’t stand the sight of an espresso?

Liquid food for thought.

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